


Punitive Action

by hwaet



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Dark, Knives, M/M, Sexual Violence, Unknown Assailant - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:08:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3924046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hwaet/pseuds/hwaet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's going to die here on the barracks bathroom floor and they'll strike his name from that spot in the ranking faster than he can bleed out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punitive Action

**Author's Note:**

> This fic deals with an onscreen sexual assault as well as the fallout of a (canonical) attempted one. Feel free to skip it if that's not your thing.

He's fast, but not fast enough in the dark. Blood is streaming from Peter's nose before he even hits the ground; he can try to make the best of how he falls, but his eyes have already started to swell, and the bruise-thickened lower lids are pressing into his field of vision. In the dark, he sees spots of brilliant white light. He knows how to take a beating, but this goes beyond that. It's Edward, back again, he thinks for a split second before the next likely option flickers into focus in his head: it's Four, and he's going to hurt him for what he did.

For what he didn't even get to do, the stupid bitch. Anybody would have bought it that she'd jumped. Stupid Stiff couldn't take it. Stupid Stiff took it a little too well. And now he's as stupid as she was. Stupid to have come here, stupid to have gone anywhere after lights-out. If it'd been _him_ waiting there, he'd have jumped at the chance. Somebody knew he'd be restless and that he'd wander out at some unholy hour to get a drink or take a piss and that they'd find him here. Somebody's been watching him. 

It's Four, and he's going to kill him, but he's going to make sure he feels it. No free-fall for him, no brush with death, he'll never get to see the terror on his face unless he's got better night vision than a cat. The knee pressed into the small of his back knocks Peter down flat on his stomach; his legs are already as good as pinned, and parted. They aren't sparring here. They aren't even fighting. No, it's worse. 

(Day one-type stuff, _what do you do if someone attacks you from behind?_ Let him slam your face against a plumbing fixture, apparently. Let him knock you out, if you have to. What a fucking idiot. He's going to die here on the barracks bathroom floor and they'll strike his name from that spot in the ranking faster than he can bleed out.)

The knife grates at the skin of his throat like a razor, hard enough to hurt but not to cut. Peter refuses to squirm, but he can't exactly quit breathing, and with every wheezing breath something in his chest strains. He can feel his nose bubbling. Like a kid, crying. If he's lucky the other guy can't see it. 

No, it's _worse_. Peter doesn't wear a belt, but his assailant does, and he can feel the cold metal end of it strike bare skin from the carelessness of how it's removed; the sensation of being roughly stripped bare is more in the sudden exposure to air than in his own waistband being pulled down (cloth scrapes lines into his hips, a hand presses down hard on his wrist to crush him) and Peter's hiss of anger chokes him in his throat. 

He's got him in a dark corner where nobody's about to come and save him but where anyone can see. Anyone could just stroll in on their way to the showers and hit the lights and see this, Peter flat on his belly about to get fucked or killed or both. 

He hasn't gotten this far in the simulations, or else this fear is a new one. It's hard to find the place at the center of him that's untouchable (too cold to be touched, unmoved) when the blood's screaming in his ears and filling up his mouth when he gasps up a wet whimpery breath. Whimpering like a kid. Peter tries to get one more kick in, jerking against the hard tile, and even as it connects his attacker doesn't seem to feel it. He's barefoot. 

Another body covers his, one that's heavier and taller and harder. The act is quick but not gentle; saying that it's better than a beating isn't saying much. Just a blunt kind of pain that gets more generalized with each thrust, quick and sharp as they are. The obscene sound of somebody else's breathing is more of an intrusion than anybody else's cock in his body. Is this just how they fuck in Dauntless? No foreplay, no talking, just sweat and blood and unprecedented pain. Quick, sharp thrusts and the hard clear sound of skin on skin. Ruthlessly. 

He finishes up still inside him, whoever this is. Peter's mind has ceased striving to identify who it could be and instead focuses in tightly on getting as narrow and cold as it can. Something small, something impenetrable as a stone. Which is pretty funny, really.

The knife's still at his throat. He can feel it start to slip. Its wielder gives it a twist, going from blade to point, and Peter has to wrench his head to the side to keep from getting butchered. The point finds the softest place in his throat, and digs in. 

His eyes are shut tightly, but he can feel his assailant shift and move. 

"You should have just killed her." The words come from so close that the hard ball of Eric's tongue piercing clatters against Peter's skin. The metal of it is body-warm. "It'd have been cleaner. Next time, just kill her. You understand me?" 

His tongue lies thick in his mouth, fumbling on a fragment of broken tooth. Peter can only hope it's one of the ones in the back. He's already thinking ahead to after this has happened and how to make it look like it hasn't. 

"I understand," he says. Peter can feel Eric's breath against his throat, can feel his own eyes threatening to roll back in his head in a dead faint. 

The heel of Eric's hand presses hard into his cheek, gouged against the bone of his jaw. He gives him one last good thump (Peter sees scarlet, a sunburst of scarlet) and then unpeels himself from his splayed body. The knife is the last thing to leave him; Eric takes special care to achieve that. He's got boots on, that crunch against the textured tile, and if he gives any more of a care for the fact that he just fucked him here on the bathroom floor to teach him a lesson than if he'd smacked him on the shoulder and told him to get back in bed, his body language doesn't show it. 

Peter can't faint here or everyone will see him. He can't go to the infirmary. He _cannot._ He can barely roll over, scrabbling one-handedly with the hand that hurts the least to yank up his pants and straighten out his shirt. Underneath his clothes there's a spreading wetness. 

The last thing he needs to do to make this whole humiliation complete is throw up, but he swallows his bile and manages not to do that. But otherwise, in the dark, he's nothing special. Peter can hardly get off the floor. He'll have to, but not yet.


End file.
